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UFO's and Aliens....are you a believer?

A subject that has fasinated me for many, many years... are there such thing as UFOs and do aliens exist? Are there any Sitepoint members who have seen or even had any personal experiences? Personaly, I myself have seen some strange, flashing lights in the sky on 2 occasions, which where not conventional aircraft. Also, what are your views on Area 51? Do you think they house UFO's or simply military aircraft? Is there a cover up or we letting our imaginations run wild?

Anybody have any good links on UFO's? I know there are lots out there.

Do I look up in the sky and expect/hope to see a UFO each night? Not at all. Do I count out the chance of there being extraterrestrial life? No way, anythings possible. Needless to say, those specials on people seeing what they think are UFOs or aliens are interesting, but not believable.

I reckon there has to be life elsewhere in the universe - possibly even this solar system if you discount intelligent life - that in itself to me is a more exciting and believable possibility than all the stuff people see in the sky.

Does it really make sense that in however many trillions of planets there are out there, we're the only ones with intellegent (sp?) life?

Think about this: Sure, it would take them an extremely long amount of time to get here if they wanted to, BUT, (this is totally theoretical here), imagine that they are further advanced in technology then we are, and have the capability to build a massive space colony (Gundam Wing ring a bell, anyone?) that actually can be piloted through space. Now, say an asteroid wiped out their planet aeons ago...what did they do? They all boarded these massive colonies, and they parted ways to spread their race...

Theoretically, it has been prooved that there is extraterrestrial life. In the universe there is an uncountable amount of planets that have been found floating around one or mutliple stars. The smallest planet that has been found in another solar system is still the size of Jupiter, planets smaller than that are not able to be seen with current technology. This means there is an almost infinite amount of planets in the universe, because big planets like Jupiter only make up a small part of the planets in the solar system.
This means there is an infinite amount of possibilities that there could be a planet out there harbouring life. Of course this is only theoretically.

I do believe there is life out there, but it is either much more advanced then we are, or, which I find more likely, is in a primal state, such as bacteria or amoeba.
Europa, one of Jupiters moons, is thought to be the most likely place to harbour life in our solar system, because of the enormous ice caps on the moon. Below that, there are large oceans, because the bottom of the ice caps has melted due to the hot core of the moon. This water and heat might trigger the start of life according to some scientists.

Originally posted by Mark T. I do believe there is life out there, but it is either much more advanced then we are, or, which I find more likely, is in a primal state, such as bacteria or amoeba.
Europa, one of Jupiters moons, is thought to be the most likely place to harbour life in our solar system, because of the enormous ice caps on the moon. Below that, there are large oceans, because the bottom of the ice caps has melted due to the hot core of the moon. This water and heat might trigger the start of life according to some scientists.

Do I believe in ET's – yes! As has been said; to think that in this entire vast universe Earth is the only planet to develop intelligent life would be more than a little conceited and to be honest quite depressing.

Aliens amongst us, flying saucers, rods (anyone see that one ) – I’m very unconvinced. Although it’s been proved that theoretically it is possible to move an object faster than light, which would make a journey between stars more feasible, why would anyone want to come here? Amazing and intelligent we may be but to come this far, expend that much effort, just to get here and play peek-a-boo without saying hello or totally annihilating us! Where’s the sense in that

Maybe they're just exploring. Just because human explorers were driven by their at times fanatical belief that the only way to survive was to control all other areas, doesn't mean that the ET's would think the same way. They may be so extremely advanced that they see the sheer stupidity in wanting to take over other planets, and want to become powerful with sheer knowledge alone.

I think it must be possible, but most of the evidence we have seen so far is highly dubious.

But..

I don't recall the exact incident, but a number of years ago a UFO apparently crash landed somewhere in an English wood, it was witnessed by a number of civilians before the army personel arrived. Over the years more and more people who were there are coming out and talking about the incident, civilians and military personel.

To my knowledge, it was never denied by the British government.
Our very own Rockwell me thinks.

I belive their are multiple alien civilisations out there.
Think of the advances we have made in the last 200 years.
now imagine another 1000 years of developement.
Lets say we have 20000 years behind another race - not unlikely - its a drop in the bucket in geographical terms.
They would be vastly superior technologically to us.
We could also be thousands of years ahead of other races.

Also depending on their environment and evolutionary process they will be vastly different to us, probably more so than we can imagine.

In a world where the human mind
can be programmed like a computer,
at what point does the human soul end
and the cybernetic machinery begin?

I definitely think that there is extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the universe. I read an excellent article in National Geographic about the probability of life on other planets, and just by narrowing down the planets that we *know* about, and estimating what their atmosphere is composed of, there were thousands of planets that could contain life.

And that is life as we believe it to be: carbon-based forms in an atmosphere of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon-dioxide and water. There may very well be life forms out there that live perfectly in what we consider to be the most deplorable of conditions!

Have I ever had any alien encounters? No..never. But the idea does intrigue me. If life on another planet did contact us, I dont believe we would be either superior or inferior to it. The technology that they have might never be possible to create here, and vice versa..so you can't say who's more powerful or better.

I find it hard to imagine that there could be an infinite amount of space out there in which we are the only intelligent life forms. However, if you believe the Bible then I don't think that there COULD be other life out there.

The Bible says that Christ died for all of us. If you follow that logic then by definition he would have died for other life. However, as his death occured here on Earth, how would other planets have heard about him and his death and be able to respond that offering.

In regards to space being infinite, think how much MORE fantastic it would be to know that God created the entire universe for his Glory and that we ARE alone in being able to appreciate and respect his creation.

Just a weird thought....maybe, those flying saucers and Aliens we know of (Big eyes)is mankind, but in, say, 1000 years time. By which time, we should have developed the technology to travel back in time and what we are seeing in the skies is actually us visiting ourselves!!!

Also there's no reason we can't travel back in time. Sure, people say that if it had been done, our descendants would be visiting us now..but what if you could only travel back until the time the machine was built and existed?

Theoretically, it is impossible to travel back in time. However, similar effects to travelling forward in time have been proven with particle experiments and the like (think, one moving near to the speed of light ages slower than those elsewhere with respect to this movement), which would satisfy the definition of moving forward in time....

Ok, let's say that you put a person on a carousel. Alone. You strapped them in, and told them "Hang on." Now, let's say this person is indestructable (far fetched, I know). Start to spin the carousel FASTER than the speed of light, and they will be transported back in time to the point when the carousel started spinning.